I love this bit from Bandcamp, as they’re doing away with ranked lists:
The goal here is to change the Best of the Year from a math equation into a discussion.
Bandcamp
As I remarked on Twitter, it’s hard enough to rank athletes who deal in hard fast numbers like wins and points. Like, sports stars have a record of Championships, and even the one with the most is still debated as being the “best ever.”
Ranking sure makes bands, labels, management and the entire music machine happy (who doesn’t want to say they were an outlets number one album in 2020?), but I think the discussion of what albums just simply mattered in a certain year is important, too.